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Even though it's been three years since the last discussion forum he attended, the crowds of people in the courtyard are still mostly the same. Xichen either stands out among them or he's preceded by a sea of whispers, because with every step he takes, more heads turn toward him.
"Sect Leader Lan!" calls one man. "It's good to see you."
The rest of his sentence goes unsaid, and for that, Xichen is grateful. Being reminded of his time in seclusion is the same thing as being reminded of what caused him to enter seclusion in the first place. It's a deep, personal pain that he suspects will never entirely fade - not the sort of thing he can easily discuss with others.
Not most others. He reminds himself again why he came here.
"Ah, Sect Leader Lan, it's good to see you here again!" says another man. If Xichen remembers correctly, he's the heir to the small MeiShi sect. It takes Xichen a second to remember his name, but as soon as he does, he repeats the greeting as politely as he can while scanning the courtyard. There is only one person he really wants to see. If he's honest with himself, that person is the entire reason he came here instead of letting Uncle Qiren attend on his own.
As he walks further into the courtyard, exchanging meaningless pleasantries with everyone who addresses him, he can't help but notice the odd looks some of the cultivators send him. It doesn't bother Xichen like he'd thought it would. When he'd made the decision to come out of seclusion and attend the Discussion Conference, he'd done so knowing that there would be people there who blamed him for Guangyao's sins. Some of the same people who once sent their children to Gusu will now always regard their sect with mistrust.
Xichen is distracted from those thoughts by something shimmering in the corner of his eye. He turns his head quickly, hopeful, and even just his view of those shoulders confirms what a part of him must have already known.
He smiles and returns the greeting of a cultivator whose face he's barely seen, but he's already walking toward the figure strolling leisurely across the walkway. He's thought about this moment for such a long time, prepared speeches and questions, but none of that matters right now. His heart is pounding in his chest. He wants, more than anything, to see that face, the last truly familiar face in his life that doesn't belong to a relative.
As if the gods have decided to show mercy on him for once, the person he was looking for turns.
Huaisang hasn't changed at all. He looks exactly the same as he had that night in the temple, and it makes something clench uncomfortably in Xichen's chest. He stops, suddenly uncertain.
If Huaisang is surprised to see him, he doesn't show it. Instead, he drifts closer to the railing of the walkway. His fan hides his mouth, but Xichen is just close enough to hear his voice from behind it.
"It's good to see you again, Zewu-Jun."
Despite the formality of his words, the corners of his eyes crinkle slightly as if he's smiling.
Xichen nods and prepares to say - something, a greeting, a pleasantry - but Huaisang is already moving on. He glides away like a memory of a dream, leaving Xichen staring helplessly after him.
_-_
The actual discussions pass in a blur. The issue at hand pertains mostly to another sudden rise in rogue cultivators walking the demonic path and wreaking havoc wherever they go. Despite the fact that the founder of demonic cultivation is now married into his family, Xichen doesn't have much to say. For the most part, Wei Wuxian has been behaving himself. He's certainly not sneaking out of the Cloud Recesses to go instruct hapless cultivators in the demonic arts.
They end the discussions for the day without having come to any real consensus about what they should do. Xichen stays with his Uncle until it's time for them to excuse themselves to get ready for bed. They return to their separate rooms, but Xichen doesn't bother preparing for sleep. He waits until well after dark, when the sounds of revelry have finally begun to die down. Then he slips out of his room and makes his way to Huaisang's private courtyard. He knows Qinghe well enough that finding his way is no trouble. It's figuring out where else Huaisang might be if not with his birds that could prove challenging.
But Xichen must know something about Huaisang, because his guess was right. Huaisang is tending to his birds when Xichen slips through the narrow entrance. The moonlight catches on the shimmering gold embroidery of his robes. If Xichen was an artist, he thinks this is the kind of scene he'd like to paint.
He clears his throat to avoid startling Huaisang, but perhaps Huaisang heard him coming, because he turns his head leisurely to give Xichen a crooked smile.
"Sect Leader Lan," he greets. "Are the accomodations not your liking?"
"The accomodations are fine," Xichen answers. He bridges the gap between them with more sureness than he feels, but still he keeps a little over an arm's distance away. "I came to find you."
"I guessed," says Huaisang evenly. The smile disappears, and the way the shadows lie across his face makes him look gloomy. "When I heard that you came out of seclusion just a few weeks before the discussion conference, I imagined that you wanted to talk."
And he does. There's so, so much that Xichen wants to say, and it all bubbles up in his throat desperately. He wants to reach out and shake Huaisang so that the other man can feel his turmoil.
"Why don't we go to my study?" Huaisang suggests. "We can talk there."
As he leads Xichen through the darkened corridors, he keeps up a light, meaningless chatter, seeming unbothered by the fact that it's entirely one-sided. It's only after they've both entered the study and Huaisang has shut the door behind Xichen that he finally falls silent.
The servants must have known that this is where Huaisang would ultimately end up, because there's a lamp lit on the table already. As Huaisang takes a seat, the light flickers, momentarily illuminating his face into unfamiliar planes. The effect is so jarring that Xichen pauses. A questioning look from Huaisang breaks the spell, and he takes his seat across the table.
For several long moments, they just stare at each other. Huaisang's eyes roam across his face as if he's looking for something that he never seems to find. Xichen just stares at what little of Huaisang's hands he can see from this angle. He's waiting for Huaisang to pull out his fan, but those hands never move.
"What was it you wanted to talk to me about, Sect Leader Lan?" asks Huaisang. The falseness of his tone grates against Xichen's ears. His own hands clench into fists on his lap, nails digging into palms.
"Did you really hate me that much?" he asks, finally.
It feels like a great tree between them has finally been felled, like a glacier has melted away in an instant. In the flickering light of this lamp, there are no pretenses between them.
"Once," Huaisang replies, sitting back on his heels slightly. His words hit Xichen like a blow to the stomach, even though he knows this is what he should've expected. "Once, I thought that you chose to be deliberately ignorant about my brother's murder. Big Brother always admired you, you know. I think in some ways, he wanted to be like you. Calmer. More graceful."
His words are a surprise to Xichen. He had never imagined that maybe Mingjue would have wanted to emulate him.
"I admired your brother, as well," Xichen replies. "He was a good man, Huaisang."
A ghost of a smile flits across Huaisang's face.
"I know," he replies, and the way he says it reminds Xichen that Huaisang is the last person left in the world who could understand his grief over Mingjue's death.
But understanding Xichen's grief isn't enough. Three years in seclusion have made Xichen realize that understanding has to go both ways. And whether or not Huaisang understands Xichen, Xichen has never fully understood Huaisang.
"If you didn't completely hate me, then why...?" Xichen can't finish his sentence. The words get stuck behind a rapidly-forming lump in the back of his throat. He digs his nails into his palms in a desperate attempt to ground himself, but it feels like trying to block a torrential flood by closing a gate. It's not enough.
"Brother Xichen," says Huaisang. He's smiling, but his eyes are tired. "I stopped hating you a long time ago. But I needed revenge for my brother. If I could have gotten it on my own, then I would have, but you know just as well as I do how that would have unfolded. Even if my actions were never discovered, Jin Guangyao would have died beloved by everyone, practically a hero to the cultivation world. His crimes would have never been known. And that's not what my brother would have wanted."
He's right, and Xichen knows it, but it doesn't stop him from wishing he could slap Huaisang. It's not that he can't see why Huaisang manipulated him, but why did it have to be him? How many times has he tried to sleep while visions of A-Yao's face, blood pouring from his mouth, haunted him? How many times has he replayed A-Yao's last words to him in his head, trying desperately to find them false? Why did it have to be him?
"Is this really what your brother would have wanted?" Xichen's voice is clipped. "For you to manipulate the cultivation world, to turn us all into your dolls to play with as you see fit?"
Huaisang's eyes slide shut. One of his hands goes to the table as if to steady himself.
"I don't know," Huaisang replies, voice barely above a whisper. "I really... don't know."
"I do," says Xichen. He wishes his voice wasn't wavering, but he knows there's no way he can fully get ahold of his emotions. "Your brother wouldn't have wanted you to go about things this way."
"What other choice did I have?" Huaisang's eyes slide open, lips pressed thin as if in frustration. "No one would have believed me if I'd come forward myself with what I knew. You all saw me as weak and foolish, a head-shaker. No one in the cultivation world would have listened to me. I had to sow the seeds of doubt. I had to let Wei Wuxian and your brother pick them up one by one. I had to let the cultivation world start to doubt Jin Guangyao on their own, as if they were the ones who had discovered his crimes in the first place. That was the only way I could truly expose him."
He's right again. Xichen wishes he could find fault in that logic, but Huaisang is so, so clever. More clever than anyone has ever given him credit for.
"Why did he have to die?" Xichen asks. He bows his head as if in supplication, as if he's asking for mercy. "Why couldn't he have been imprisoned with his reputation completely ruined?"
"Why did my brother have to die?" asks Huaisang. "Why did my brother suffer a qi deviation that lead him to attacking several cultivators he had no troubles with? Why were my brother's doubts about Jin Guangyao always ignored? Even though my brother knew his true nature, no one listened."
So that was it, then. In Huaisang's mind, he'd done everything in his power to get Mingjue the most complete justice he could. Only it hadn't really helped anything, had it? Mingjue was still a fierce corpse, and Huaisang was still stuck in a position he didn't want but that Xichen was beginning to suspect he was very well suited for.
"You really are ruthless," he murmurs. He tries to stand on wobbling legs, but Huaisang is leaning across the table with his arm outstretched as if to stop him.
"I suppose I do have some things in common with Jin Guangyao," he says. "In that I didn't mean for this to happen to you. Not really. Like I said, I stopped hating you a long time ago. I wanted this all to be over, for you to be able to move on."
The light is catching strangely on Huaisang's eyes, and it takes Xichen a second to realize that it's because they're growing damp.
"I don't have any ill will toward you," he continues. "You were the only one who was actually kind to me after brother died. You've always been kind. I know if it had been you who discovered Jin Guangyao's crimes first, you would have done something. It took me a long time to believe that, but I finally do."
His eyes turn pleading.
"I never wanted to hurt you," he says.
Xichen wants to laugh. He wants to, but he doesn't think he has the energy. He's exhausted, suddenly.
"But you did," he says. "You really, really did."
Huaisang pushes himself back from the table. His face is troubled, and Xichen can see the two telltale pink splotches he gets on his cheeks right before he starts crying. Even so, he moves with grace and purpose to come around to where Xichen is sitting. Before Xichen can comprehend what he's doing, he kneels and presses his forehead to the floor.
"I'm sorry," says Huaisang. "I'm not sorry for taking revenge for Big Brother. I'm not sorry that Jin Guangyao is dead. But I'm sorry that I hurt you. That's the only part of my plan that I've ever regretted."
Unbidden, A-Yao's last words flash through his head like a knife being twisted in his side.
"This isn't something an apology can fix," Xichen says, and he wishes it wasn't so clear from his voice that he's barely blinking back tears.
"I know," says Huaisang, pushing himself back up to face Xichen. "I know."
He hesitates for just a second before reaching for Xichen's hand, pausing just before making contact to let Xichen pull away. For some incomprehensible reason, Xichen doesn't.
"I know that I hurt you. I know that you can't forgive me - at least not fully. I won't ask you to. But I want you to know that it wasn't my intention to make you suffer. You really were the person who was kindest to me in my life. I think everything would have been completely different if I'd never met you. After you announced that you were going into seclusion, I wondered if I should, too. I thought that maybe if I did, it would be like atonement toward you. I could understand a part of what you were going through, and I could endure it with you. But I know it was just a stupid idea. I know it that doesn't make a difference. I can't totally understand what you must feel toward me. I won't ask you to forget about what I've done. But if there was one person whose pain I could undo, it would be yours."
Huaisang squeezes his hand so tightly that it's almost painful, but - he's warm, and his warmth is grounding when Xichen can't bring himself to look away from the tears slipping down Huaisang's cheeks.
"I want to believe you," Xichen confesses desperately.
"What can I do?" asks Huaisang. "What can I do to prove to you that I'm sincere? I've thought about it for a long time, but I can't come up with an answer."
There should be a rift between them, Xichen thinks. A gap full of all their resentment and all the ways they've failed each other that's impossible to cross. But the distance between them has never felt smaller than it does in this moment, with Huaisang ducking his head to hide his sniffling and Xichen still holding onto his hand like a lifeline.
"I want to forgive you," he says finally, and Huaisang looks up at him as if Xichen has just said the last thing he ever expected to hear. He parts his lips, but Xichen doesn't give him time to speak. "I've wanted to forgive you for a long time. And I - I don't think I can, yet. But... I don't want to abandon you, either."
Huaisang turns to where their hands are connected on Xichen's knees as if he's looking for confirmation that this is real. He squeezes Xichen's hand experimentally, and Xichen squeezes back.
"You...," he begins, but when the words don't come, he clears his throat and tries again. "I think - I think I've always underestimated you, Brother Xichen. I thought the only thing that could possibly make you happy would be if I died."
"I don't want you to die," says Xichen, shaking his head for emphasis. "Your death won't change anything. After you die, everyone will still be gone. You took everyone away, Huaisang."
Huaisang's breath catches, and his eyes slide shut as if he's trying to avoid looking at the moment a needle pierces his skin.
"Not everyone," he says, quietly. "I - you haven't lost everyone."
He bows his head again, but perhaps he feels Xichen's questioning gaze, because he keeps talking.
"I'm here," he says. "I know that - maybe you'll realize you can't ever forgive me. That's fine. I think that no matter what, no matter how much I have to change in order to lead Qinghe the way my brother would have wanted, I'll always like you best out of everyone. Whatever I can do, whenever I can help you, if I can help you, then I'll do it."
When he looks up, the flame in the lamp catches his eyes, and for second it looks like the fire is inside him.
"I vow to you that I will never abandon you. If you want me to stay away, that's fine. I won't come near if you don't want me to. But if the world turns against you, I'll ignore everything and stay on your side. If you can't live in the Cloud Recesses anymore, you'll have a home in Qinghe. If your sect needs assistance, ours is at your disposal. And if you ask for all those things without seeing my face, I'll give that to you, too."
He sounds so young in this moment, so incredibly young, that Xichen remembers the first time he'd met Huaisang. Huaisang had been kneeling in the courtyard next to a saber that seemed much too large for his tiny body. There were tears rolling down his round cheeks as he looked at the rapidly-approaching figure of his brother helplessly. At the time, Xichen had wanted to pick him up and give him a hug.
"You're the last one," Xichen says. He doesn't mean to - the words just slip out. "There's no one else who can fully understand what I've been through."
Huaisang ducks his head.
"I need you to stay alive," says Xichen. He's barely thinking as he raises his arms. Back then, he hadn't done what he'd wanted to. He hadn't hugged Huaisang. But now - now he presses Huaisang close, so that his face is pressed into Xichen's neck. And shockingly, Huaisang allows it, although his body is stiff in Xichen's arms. "I need to know that you won't disappear too. When I was in seclusion, I tried to resign myself to being alone, but I just - couldn't. Three years, and I couldn't make myself accept that."
It's apparently his turn to cry. The tears slip down his cheek and land on the top of Huaisang's head. Perhaps the sensation comes as a surprise, because Huaisang pulls back just enough to look at him. He stares at if he can't comprehend what he's seeing. Then his hands are coming up to cup both sides of Xichen's face.
"You don't have to," he says. "Whatever you want from me, I'll give it."
Xichen brings his fingers up to push Huaisang's bangs back as if they were blocking his view. In reality, he needs a moment to think.
"I need time," he says. "I need time, to think and to - to figure out how to keep moving forward. I wasn't able to do that, before."
He bites back the word now before it can slip out at the end of the sentence.
"But I - I want to stay close to you," says Xichen. "I'm... I'm willing to get to know you. The real you."
It takes Huaisang a second to process that. When he does, he withdraws his hands from Xichen's face as though he's been burned.
"I don't think you'd like that," he says, casting his eyes to the side like a blushing maiden. But there's no need to hide behind shame - not anymore, not between them. It's Xichen's turn to hold Huaisang's face, and he guides the other man to look at him.
"I don't want a pretense," says Xichen. "I've known - a verion of you, I think - for years. I'm finally ready to know the real you."
Huaisang's eyes flood with tears. He breaks free of Xichen's grip to rub at his eyes desperately with his sleeves.
"You've always been like this, Brother Xichen," he says, and he might be trying to complain, but his watery voice makes it hard to tell. "You've always been so kind. All my memories of you are of you smiling, you laughing, you being sympathetic, you patting my head - I always wished I could see the real you, too."
Xichen startled at that.
"If you have to show your pain when you're suffering, I can accept that," says Huaisang. "If you want to know the real me, then I want to know the real you, too."
Xichen closes his eyes and presses forward so that their foreheads are touching. Like this, he can feel every move Huaisang makes. This is as close to another person as he's been in years. He hadn't realized how badly he's needed to feel the warmth of another person until right this moment, but now it's almost overwhelming.
"Keep your promise to me," he says, into the tiny gap between them. "That's all I want."
Huaisang's hands are on his face again, gently guiding him away. The blatant rejection stings like the discipline whip, only instead of hitting his back, Xichen feels it much deeper than that.
"I will," says Huaisang. "I will keep my promise to you."
And then suddenly he's leaning forward as if he wasn't the one who moved Xichen's head away in the first place and -
oh.
oh.
The kiss is completely chaste, just a quick brush of the lips, but it feels sacred somehow. As if in that one gesture, Huaisang has managed to seal his vow and bind them together completely.
"From now on," says Huaisang. "I will always be your ally and your advocate. If you need me, then I won't leave your side. I'll return the kindness you've always shown me, and I'll atone for the pain I've caused you."
Xichen gropes clumsily for Huaisang's hand. When he finds it, he brings it up to his lips to press a soft kiss to the smooth skin of his knuckles.
"I'll say a prayer tonight and every night," he says. "That after getting to know each other, we can become close."
Huaisang smiles.
"Then I'll pray for the same thing," he replies.
_-_
"Brother Xichen!"
The Cloud Recesses forbids running, but even if didn't, Xichen wouldn't walk any faster than he is now. Huaisang's smile is small, but Xichen knows him well enough now to know that it's genuine. He's happy to see Xichen, just like Xichen is happy to see him.
Xichen doesn't need to run. Huaisang is right there, waiting for him.